


torn-up road

by outboxed (fallencrest)



Category: Sons of Anarchy, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Motorcycles, Repression, Survival, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 20:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/pseuds/outboxed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chibs gets back from taking a piss to find some redneck trying to steal his Harley. Back in the day, before all this shit, guy would've ended a head shorter for touching Chibs' baby; but, in a zombie apocalypse, it's actually just nice to meet a guy who appreciates a quality set of wheels. (Written for the <a href="http://sentential.livejournal.com/5085.html">SOA comment ficathon</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	torn-up road

It's a beautiful day. Well, as beautiful a day as any can be when you know how badly the world's gone to shit. The sun's bright but the breeze is cool and Daryl Dixon has had the unusual pleasure of not seeing rotting flesh for at least the past fifty miles of road. 

He's already calling it a good one, a real fine day, before he sees the beautiful dark sheen of an abandoned Harley on the roadside. And, yeah, okay, maybe he's doing his baby wrong, pulling over to take a look at this fine machine, but he can't feel too bad about it when the Harley's all sleek and black and perfect, not even dusty from the road, like some artefact from a time when people could afford to give a shit. (Not that Daryl ever could afford to give a shit. Never could've afforded the Harley if he worked every day til he died. But that's another story.)

He's just touching the gorgeous chrome of the bars, getting caught up in a fantasy about driving off on this gorgeous beast of a bike, when the yell echoes through the trees - loud beyond all caution - "Oi, get yer hands off my fuckin' bike." And maybe the guy, emerging from the woods with a handgun raised, was about to issue some kind of threat, but Daryl puts his hands up, real fast, the universal sign of surrender and the guy doesn't say anything else.

"I was only looking at it," Daryl says, as the guy approaches, knowing speech is the easiest way to tell the living from the dead these days. Hell, maybe the guy even took him for a dead man - can't be too careful these days, after all. Or maybe he's just protective of his bike, not that Daryl could argue with that. 

The guy is coming closer, gun still in hand, when he clocks Daryl's bike, pulled up a few paces back up the road, and breaks into a smile. He lowers his gun then and says "Christ, never thought I'd meet a proper fucking biker again. That your ride?" He gestures with his gun as he says it, looking sort of appraising, though Daryl knows his own bike's nothing to the guy's Harley and that, in another life, that would've meant something.

"Yeah, she's mine. Used to be my brother's but-" he shrugs, because there really isn't anything more to say about it.

They shake hands over the Harley and the guy introduces himself as Chibs, prompting Daryl to give his own name. Doesn't seem like either of them feels much like talking though, all either of them give are short answers to the ensuing questions, but that suits Daryl well enough. Turns out the guy was in a motorcycle gang way back when things in the world made a certain amount of sense, and that his bike and jacket are all he's got left of that life.

A lot of things happen in an apocalypse that wouldn't otherwise and somehow they end up sticking together - because it seems senseless to strike out on their own when they might be able to help each other out. Chibs has some kind of camp nearby, staying in a tiny shack just past the woods, and Daryl hunts for something to eat so he can earn his keep one way or another. 

They get drunk and make a fire indoors, right in the middle of the living-space, and Daryl gets up the nerve to ask about Chibs' gnarly facial scars. They get talking about the lives they had before, that weird hope they share that there is still somewhere out there untouched by this fucking plague. Chibs seems to believe it more than Daryl does, has this burning belief that his daughter's still alive, still living normal, and Daryl isn't about to try and crush that with pointless realism. He still hopes about Merle, sometimes, for all that no-one else ever believed he could've made it out of Atlanta alive. 

It's hard not to trade stories, open up a little, when that's all the entertainment you've got, shooting the shit about bikes and assholes they used to know. And it's easier than the silences, which are too big and unwieldy, intense and open to possibility. 

They sleep huddled up together on a shitty mattress, partly because it's the only thing here that's even close to a bed and partly because a clear sky during the day always leads to a real cold night. That's awkward, too, the closeness, the being with someone else; or it is at first anyway. Only they stay together almost a fortnight in the little shack and every day it gets easier, more comfortable, natural. 

The night before they move on to somewhere else (a decision they made when their supplies were running low, and radius they travel from camp before they reach anything like civilisation was getting bigger and bigger, the nearest gas stations all out of gas), things get that bit more complicated. Maybe because this is the potential jumping off point, _you go west, I'll go east, we don't have to stay together_ , something changes. And, sure, in another time, Daryl would've used the words Merle taught him for this shit, real hateful words, but now he doesn't think he needs them and it feels real good, better than it ought to, Chibs' hand - maybe just because it's been so long since there's been any hand doing that, other than his own. 

Daryl knows he could run from this, figures maybe he should; but, the next day, when they get to the fork in the road, they keep on riding together, going further down the same road. 

They nearly die the next week, riding straight into a town full of walkers who flock to the sound of the bike engines and follow them all the way out of town. But, once they're out of there, pulled up at the road-side, miles out of town, checking that they're still whole and not too shaken up, Daryl doesn't fight when Chibs presses him up against a tree, kisses him, knee grinding up between Daryl's legs til he's undeniably hard, hands clasped tight in Daryl's shirt. And, when one of Chibs' hands loosens, finds its way inside Daryl's jeans, Daryl can't pretend this isn't a thing he wants. 

There are all kinds of places he could turn off this road and a whole lot of ways he could die any minute now but, for a while, at least, he doesn't do either. And, driving alongside Chibs' Harley on a wide-open freeway, weaving between occasional abandoned cards, Daryl's damn glad of that.


End file.
